Are your children socially confident?
A happy New Year to all parents! What a start to the year with schools closed and everyone snowed in; except us – we seem to be the only place in the UK without snow. There is a little piece of the UK from Ringwood to Bournemouth that has somehow missed the weather and we are in it! Disappointing for the children to have the freezing cold without the snow but that’s the way it is.
So yesterday we braved the cold and the ice and went half way to Bournemouth to a shopping centre to get a few bits and pieces. We stopped for a hot chocolate, as you do, only to find that all the people who were at the shopping centre had the same idea and there were no tables apart from a table for four with one lady sitting at it reading a book. (Yes, I do find that very annoying!) Anyway, I got into the queue and asked the children to go and ask the lady if we could share her table, or at the very least ask if we could take the chairs to a table with no chairs. Would they do it? Absolutely not. During the ten minutes in the queue we missed about 4 tables because they didn’t want to ask anyone anything!
Of course we teach our children to avoid talking to strangers and I’m sure that contributes to their reticence, but there comes a time when they need to be able to confidently and politely speak to a stranger in a safe environment like a coffee shop, with their mother standing six feet away. The irony is that Tim (husband) and I are currently completing writing a book on social confidence for adults. Yesterday reminded me just how important it is to teach our children social confidence too.
What I need to do, as always, is find out what stopped them from wanting to make requests of strangers. Again, as always, they know how to ask questions and be polite, so what is stopping them in the moment? How were they thinking about themselves and others that led to them feeling less than confident? When I know the answer to that – only then can I help them to think differently.
Here’s what he had to say……
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Hi Emma,
This video keeps freezing!
Hi Emma,
Unfortunatley, the video freezes. Hope you are well and thriving. Best wishes, Marilyn
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